Teenagers from Bexley have won one of London’s biggest entrepreneurial competitions for young people.

Students from Christ the King Sixth Form College were revealed as the overall winners of London Metropolitan University’s annual Big Idea Challenge for schools and colleges on Thursday, April 26.

Students Bradley Aquilina, Stephanie Boateng and Jahmeina Campbell made up the team for the school, which is based in Chislehurst Road, Sidcup. They entered the competition with their winning idea, Be Sharp, Be Smart - an app to help young people develop life skills such as how to pay utility bills, buy a house and get insurance.

Bradley said: “Hearing our team’s idea being announced as the winner was absolutely shocking because none of us expected to win.

“We are extremely grateful to our mentor, Melanie Evans from Microsoft, who worked really hard with us and helped us to develop and hone down our idea.

“It was fantastic to attend the Bootcamp Day back in February where we could work in a real life dynamic business environment.

“Winning the Big Idea Challenge has made us more determined to make our idea an actual reality and we are going to pursue this idea as we believe there is real value in it.”

The team has won mentoring and support from the Accelerator and will be able to use the leading facilities at the Hoxton-based incubator.

They have also won professional support to establish their website to launch their business.

The Big Idea Challenge for schools and colleges runs alongside the University’s annual Big Idea Challenge, which invites students, alumni and staff to enter their idea and win a shared prize pool of £30,000 to launch their winning idea.

Previous winners have gone on to launch businesses which have created hundreds of jobs and millions of pounds profit.

Professor John Raftery, London Met’s Vice-Chancellor, said: “London Metropolitan University’s mission is to transform lives and one of our key aims is to develop students’ entrepreneurial skills.

“The Big Idea Challenge helps the University achieve this mission.

“These are the ideas of the future and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for our winners.”